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Florida Marlins make their first-ever visit to Seattle's Safeco Field, where the host Mariners will attempt to end a frustrating home losing streak in the opener of a three-game interleague series.
Seattle has lost its last seven home games, the club's longest skid at Safeco Field since the facility opened in 1999. The last time the Mariners dropped eight in a row as the host was between July 28-August 12, 1996, when Seattle played its games at the Kingdome.
The Mariners' three most recent home defeats came at the hands of the lowly Washington Nationals this past weekend. In Sunday's series finale, Kory Casto hit a tie-breaking pinch-hit three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning that carried Washington to a 6-2 victory.
Seattle led 2-1 after six innings, but the Nationals tied the score in the seventh when Cristian Guzman smacked a leadoff double off Mariners starter Jarrod Washburn and later scored on a ground out.
Washburn gave up two runs on eight hits over six-plus innings of work. Mark Lowe (1-3) was hung with the loss after serving up Casto's blast and was charged with four runs allowed (3 earned) in two innings.
Ichiro Suzuki was the lone Mariner to record more than one hit on the afternoon, as the star outfielder finished 2-for-5 with an RBI.
Seattle has now dropped four of its last six games and owns the majors' worst overall record (24-45) as well as the American League's worst home mark (14-22).
Carlos Silva will not only be trying to stop his team's lengthy home slide, but a personal winless drought of his own when he takes the mound for the Mariners this evening.
Silva has posted an unwanted 0-7 record along with an 8.79 earned run average over his last eight starts and hasn't won since besting Oakland on April 17, a span of 10 appearances.
The struggling offseason acquisition did have an encouraging outing at Toronto this past Tuesday. Silva held the Blue Jays to three runs over seven innings, but came out on the short end of a 3-1 decision.
He has faced the Marlins 21 times previously, although only one of those was in a starting role, and owns a 2-0 record with a 2.90 ERA against Florida. That lone start came while with the Minnesota Twins last season, and Silva came out a winner by tossing seven innings of one-run ball.
Florida ended a three-game losing streak with Sunday's 9-3 triumph over in- state foe Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field. Wes Helms and Mike Jacobs each belted three-run homers to back a excellent performance from starter Ricky Nolasco.
Nolasco (7-4) fell one out shy of recording his first career complete game and struck out a career-high 12 batters over his 8 2/3-inning stint. The right- hander gave up three runs -- two earned -- on six hits to earn his sixth win in his last decisions.
The Marlins would love to see an encore out of youngster Andrew Miller in tonight's opener. The highly-regarded left-hander has had an inconsistent first season in Florida thus far, but he is coming off a strong showing in his most recent mound trip.
Against Philadelphia on Wednesday, Miller yielded just one run on four hits and struck out seven over seven innings. He left the contest with a 2-1 lead, but the Phillies denied him a win by scoring once off closer Kevin Gregg in the top of the ninth.
Miller had not lasted more than five innings in any of his three previous starts and will be searching for his first win since he twirled seven shutout innings to defeat Arizona on May 22.
The only previous series between these two interleague foes took place at Florida's Dolphin Stadium from June 7-9, 2005. The Mariners won two of the three matchups during that set.
